Re: Needles

Posted by Bob Carabbio on December 23, 1997 at 13:54:25

In Reply to: Re: Needle Bearing conversion for two-tooth sector
posted by Marco Tahtaras on December 23, 1997 at 00:32:41

When we did our boxes (Bill and I) we bought needle bearings from Torrington, and bought them according to the sector shaft diameters that we had.

Bill's was badly worn in the bushing areas, so I turned it down to the next smaller standard size (about 0.05") and used corresponding needle sets. Mine was standard since I found a GOOD sector at a swap meet.

Bill's needle sets were "Caged" so there are about half the needles in them that I have since I'm using "Filled" needle sets.Bill's car has been in use for about 3K miles with about 3/4" of rim play which hasn't increased yet.

The sector shaft is NOT hardened, and neither shaft showed signs of heat-treat except on the teeth which were quite hard.

We also installed Torrington thrust needle bearings instead of the brass washer inside the box, which required that the inside end of the shaft housing be machined back a bit.

The needle sets in both cases, were definitly not loose, but showed a considerable preload, requiring the shafts to be "Screwed" into the housings although they were free rotating when in position. I purposely machined the housings to the small end of the diametric tolerance to insure a good tight fit.

I did find, as touching the business of backlash, that sector/worm matching was required in both boxes - mine since I was substituting a sector, and Bill's since his box had been used out of adjustment long enough to establish a bad tooth contact pattern.

We performed it with machinist's blue, and a Dremel grinder using abrasive disks. coating the sector with blue, then adjusting the box as well as we could then cranking it through it's range while loading the sector shaft in both directions.The dis-assembling and knocking off the high spots on the sector teeth.It took about 10-15 iterations, but resulted in a tight steering box which in both cases showed about 3/4" rim play at center.The play increases toward the ends of travel, but that's natural.

As I said, we installed shaft seals, and end cover tube extentions in both units, and have NO leakage using 140W.


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